Tottenham Cake

I wonder if on Monday morning Tottenham will be handing out free slices of Tottenham Cake to its young fans?

That’s what happened in 1901 when Spurs beat Sheffield United 3-1 in the replay of the FA Cup Final. (That was the first of Spurs’ ’01’ winning years but let’s not get hung-up on the fact we’re not in an ’01’ for this League Cup final.)

Local man Ted Willis – the creator of ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ – gave a good description of Tottenham Cake in his autobiography:

“… it consisted of a scone like base covered with lurid pink icing. It was baked in long flat trays, then cut into cubes, which retailed for a penny each. Luckily the cake was not always cut evenly or the icing uniformly spread, and the smaller defective pieces were sold off at half price.“

That pink icing would have started out being not quite so lurid when it was made with berries from the mulberry bushes in the gardens of Tottenham Quaker House where the cake is thought to originate.

I am getting set to make my Tottenham Cake this weekend as a plain madeira sponge loaf rather than a tray bake. There will be pink icing – using just enough food colouring to emulate the pinkness the mulberries would have given – and dessicated coconut sprinkled over the top as tradition also dictates. A batch of small buns decorated like that would be good too. All ready to hand out to the celebrating fans…